[onion2k]

Cooking takes time and energy, which you should not value at $0..

If you're not being paid for your time then the value is $0. Most people on HN are on salaries where the hours we work have no direct impact to what we earn.

I'm not suggesting there's no value in choosing what you should spend your time on, but rather that using some imaginary hourly wage to define it is stupid. There are much better ways to choose how to spend your time than dreaming up a threshold of "things that aren't worth $x/hour" vs "things that are worth $x/hour" because it will always end up being the boring, tiresome jobs that fall below that threshold even if they're actually useful or important.

I know a lot of people who claim they don't have time to cook or clean their houses or do gardening, and use the dollar value of their time as a reason. Most of them seem to have time to watch the latest Netflix shows or play videogames though. For some reason watching Stranger Things is apparently worth $100/hour.

[gridlockd]

You're conflating the time you can use for work and the time you must use for leisure. I have about 5 very productive hours in the day, plus maybe another 5 less productive ones. I must replenish my energy in the remaining hours.

Now, if you like cooking, perhaps it is like leisure, perhaps it actually replenishes you. Otherwise, you might as well put a dollar value on it, because you are effectively working overtime.

Another way to look at it is that you're really using dollars as a way to better manage your time. Let's say you work 8 hours a day, but you put in another 2 hours into learning something new, maybe a side business, anything that isn't just leisure. Of course that doesn't translate directly into a salary, but the expected value is not zero dollars.

[mft_]

> If you're not being paid for your time then the value is $0.

Is it that simple?

When deciding whether to do something myself versus paying somebody else, I factor in the time taken multiplied by the pleasure or displeasure of doing the task myself, probably sometimes multiplied by the probability of the outcome being above or below ideal.

I’d therefore argue that my unpaid time does actually have a dollar value: it’s the amount I’d be willing to pay to not perform a task myself in that time. It’s complicated by the other factors, but a relationship still exists.

[tluyben2]

Exactly; it's a subjective value, not $ value. If it was really $ value, people would behave quite a bit different.